My Heart Moves From Cold to Fire
The first time (so far from the last) she feels her heart race in William Adama’s presence, it is shocking - her heart slams into her ribcage as if it were a wild animal, beating itself against its prison walls. The room is dim, and he looks good, kneeling on the floor of his cabin (so much younger than now, less weight spread across his frame as he held up the entire world as they knew it).
When his eyes focus on her, she forgets to breathe - oceanairblueskybluenakedblue - it is the first time he’s looked at her without aggression, without irritation or resentment - without any negative emotion clouding his gaze. She wants to squirm, pull her thighs just a fraction of an inch closer together - until there is the slightest pressure, oh - just there - and squirm. Her knees jerk toward each other - just a bit - before she can stop herself, feeling her heart just beat, beat, beating itself off her ribcage as she forgets to exhale. The weight of his gaze alone on her face flusters her so much; she is forced to cast her eyes about, looking for anything that she can distract herself with.
She finds nothing (and everything, but everything around her is so distinctly him) and instead forces herself to devote half of her mind to debating the future of the human race (Lords above, what would everyone think if they knew she went through this only half paying attention?) while the other half (the half she habitually shoves in the back of her proverbial mind closet, safe out of trouble’s way) is forced to chant the periodic table. (Laura imagines herself - hands behind her back in her middle school uniform - reciting each and every element - and Lords she had hated chemistry.)
Somehow, she manages to come to an intelligent agreement with Commander William Adama (and she honestly cannot imagine calling him anything other than Commander in her head right now - which has a certain kink all its own. Yes, Commander!) and he holds out an arm, his hand steady as he waits to shake hers.
She hesitates, but only for a moment before she sticks her own out, praying he can’t feel the tremors (shockwaves of reverberation and oh if her godsdamned heart would just stop trying to leave her body to join this man’s, she’d be fine) that make her wrist vibrate in concentration. Staystraightstaystraight.
His palm is warm, rough and dry as it brushes against hers. His fingers curl into her palm and she imagines she can feel the deep groove of his lifeline under hers. The pulse in her fingertips pounds against his skin (shockwave absorbed) and she sighs slightly before breathing the tension out of her frame, feeling her spine become softer, and her body almost hisses in relief.
The light catches his eyes - shadows his face and draws her mind (and now that the speaking has stopped being a top priority, all 100% of her reckless mind is occupied by that mischievous schoolgirl) back down that dark path, and she swears that nerve from her palm never led down there before. Her eyes sweep around, searching for something, anything to keep her tenuous grip on the realities of here and now - and the soft light from the lamp makes his pilot wings gleam softly in the dim room. The light is bright, and it sparkles just on the edge of her vision - a metallic sheen she can force her mind to concentrate on. Her knees shake as they press into each other and she can hear her own voice, reciting aloud as though facts are euphemisms in the chemistry of erotica; Gold. Symbol: Au; atomic weight: 196.967; atomic number: 79; specific gravity: 19.3 at 20°C.
She gasps involuntarily when he lets go and turns away, and when she takes a step back, one knee presses against the other and she squirms as her heart rattles its own cage in an attempt to force her to see where it belongs.
~*~*~*~*~*~
She had been in charge of the census, loved organizing and counting things out - every number held a value, no matter what the equation. She counted people first, and then survivors and finally humans - but she could not literally keep a census on how many times she felt that same pull to him.
Sometimes it was good (gold candlelight casting warm pools of ambient light as his hand fit just there on her hip and his ring winked up at her as if it had known just where she wanted that hand and had guided it there) - and sometimes it was bad (bright, bright fluorescent light on his grey, grey skin as silver staples held him together and she thought her heart may have hurt itself with its agitation that time) but it was all. the. time and this could have been time #4,674 or time #7,921, not even she could keep count.
This time the sunlight was pale amber, filtering gently through spring green leaves and bathing the forest floor in a pattern of shadows - small leaf-shaped shadows, ringed in filigreed sunshine. His arm was around his son, and she clutched her book to her chest, because surely - surely this time her heart would break through the calcium fence holding it in, and she needed the extra layer between him and her, lest it leave her for him.
His eyes met her as they filled with tears (tears from William Adama, for Gods’ sakes) and his eyes are so blue he could drown her with emotion and warmth and gratitude - everything so un-William-like that she decides then and there that she can never call him by that moniker.
The bible is just barely enough to keep her traitorous heart where it belongs.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Time #2,356,721 (yes, it’s a ridiculous nonsensical, plucked-from-midair kind of number, but it wouldn’t shock her to learn it is close to accurate), she is surrounded by brown mud and grey hills - cold winds blow hard enough to whip the ends of her too-long hair (split ends and strands that had woven themselves into tiny ropes, and Gods she would kill for a hairdresser - ) into her face, little stinging strands of red and brown that cut into her too-pale cheeks.
She pulls her grey sweater closer to her body, shivering in the cold as she glares up at the grey clouds that roll across the sky, heavy and low - any minute they would be about to burst.
Some days the sky is a clear deep blue, and she can smile and mean it as she stares up at the valiant sun burning its way across the azure sky. She thinks of his eyes, and her heart doesn’t pound, but instead almost lodges itself in her ribcage - almost up under her collar bone as it yearns to be in that blue, blue sky with him.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The infinity-eth (stop counting, stop counting, stop counting down) time, there are no warm colours. Sharp blues and eerie reds splashed on black walls. The red lights pulsate in a cheap imitation of her heart as it slam, slam, slams itself - he’sherehe’sherehe’sherehecame. Of course he came. Of course he came - because - because her heart cannot be this far from his again without dying a little faster. And maybe - just maybe his own three-sizes too big heart thunders around in his barrel of a chest when he stands next to her too.
Maybe - maybe he’s even been keeping count.
The Raptor is a dull, nondescript colour, and his flight suit is green - but his eyes (oh his eyes) are still so, so blue - bluer than she’s ever seen before - bluest when they look at her as if she is the only thing in the world - in the universe that exists. And when he holds her, and she feels her heart leap and bound forward, forward, forward until it beats against his, with his, she closes her eyes and breathes for the first time in forever, and her heart doesn’t feel any ache, any pain, anything other than the complete sense of being home.
When her face is buried in his neck, she can see nothing but golds and blues and love and him.
He hasn’t been counting the amount of times his heart ached for her either, as it turns out - but he knows that it was far too many times too count.
(About time).
When his eyes focus on her, she forgets to breathe - oceanairblueskybluenakedblue - it is the first time he’s looked at her without aggression, without irritation or resentment - without any negative emotion clouding his gaze. She wants to squirm, pull her thighs just a fraction of an inch closer together - until there is the slightest pressure, oh - just there - and squirm. Her knees jerk toward each other - just a bit - before she can stop herself, feeling her heart just beat, beat, beating itself off her ribcage as she forgets to exhale. The weight of his gaze alone on her face flusters her so much; she is forced to cast her eyes about, looking for anything that she can distract herself with.
She finds nothing (and everything, but everything around her is so distinctly him) and instead forces herself to devote half of her mind to debating the future of the human race (Lords above, what would everyone think if they knew she went through this only half paying attention?) while the other half (the half she habitually shoves in the back of her proverbial mind closet, safe out of trouble’s way) is forced to chant the periodic table. (Laura imagines herself - hands behind her back in her middle school uniform - reciting each and every element - and Lords she had hated chemistry.)
Somehow, she manages to come to an intelligent agreement with Commander William Adama (and she honestly cannot imagine calling him anything other than Commander in her head right now - which has a certain kink all its own. Yes, Commander!) and he holds out an arm, his hand steady as he waits to shake hers.
She hesitates, but only for a moment before she sticks her own out, praying he can’t feel the tremors (shockwaves of reverberation and oh if her godsdamned heart would just stop trying to leave her body to join this man’s, she’d be fine) that make her wrist vibrate in concentration. Staystraightstaystraight.
His palm is warm, rough and dry as it brushes against hers. His fingers curl into her palm and she imagines she can feel the deep groove of his lifeline under hers. The pulse in her fingertips pounds against his skin (shockwave absorbed) and she sighs slightly before breathing the tension out of her frame, feeling her spine become softer, and her body almost hisses in relief.
The light catches his eyes - shadows his face and draws her mind (and now that the speaking has stopped being a top priority, all 100% of her reckless mind is occupied by that mischievous schoolgirl) back down that dark path, and she swears that nerve from her palm never led down there before. Her eyes sweep around, searching for something, anything to keep her tenuous grip on the realities of here and now - and the soft light from the lamp makes his pilot wings gleam softly in the dim room. The light is bright, and it sparkles just on the edge of her vision - a metallic sheen she can force her mind to concentrate on. Her knees shake as they press into each other and she can hear her own voice, reciting aloud as though facts are euphemisms in the chemistry of erotica; Gold. Symbol: Au; atomic weight: 196.967; atomic number: 79; specific gravity: 19.3 at 20°C.
She gasps involuntarily when he lets go and turns away, and when she takes a step back, one knee presses against the other and she squirms as her heart rattles its own cage in an attempt to force her to see where it belongs.
~*~*~*~*~*~
She had been in charge of the census, loved organizing and counting things out - every number held a value, no matter what the equation. She counted people first, and then survivors and finally humans - but she could not literally keep a census on how many times she felt that same pull to him.
Sometimes it was good (gold candlelight casting warm pools of ambient light as his hand fit just there on her hip and his ring winked up at her as if it had known just where she wanted that hand and had guided it there) - and sometimes it was bad (bright, bright fluorescent light on his grey, grey skin as silver staples held him together and she thought her heart may have hurt itself with its agitation that time) but it was all. the. time and this could have been time #4,674 or time #7,921, not even she could keep count.
This time the sunlight was pale amber, filtering gently through spring green leaves and bathing the forest floor in a pattern of shadows - small leaf-shaped shadows, ringed in filigreed sunshine. His arm was around his son, and she clutched her book to her chest, because surely - surely this time her heart would break through the calcium fence holding it in, and she needed the extra layer between him and her, lest it leave her for him.
His eyes met her as they filled with tears (tears from William Adama, for Gods’ sakes) and his eyes are so blue he could drown her with emotion and warmth and gratitude - everything so un-William-like that she decides then and there that she can never call him by that moniker.
The bible is just barely enough to keep her traitorous heart where it belongs.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Time #2,356,721 (yes, it’s a ridiculous nonsensical, plucked-from-midair kind of number, but it wouldn’t shock her to learn it is close to accurate), she is surrounded by brown mud and grey hills - cold winds blow hard enough to whip the ends of her too-long hair (split ends and strands that had woven themselves into tiny ropes, and Gods she would kill for a hairdresser - ) into her face, little stinging strands of red and brown that cut into her too-pale cheeks.
She pulls her grey sweater closer to her body, shivering in the cold as she glares up at the grey clouds that roll across the sky, heavy and low - any minute they would be about to burst.
Some days the sky is a clear deep blue, and she can smile and mean it as she stares up at the valiant sun burning its way across the azure sky. She thinks of his eyes, and her heart doesn’t pound, but instead almost lodges itself in her ribcage - almost up under her collar bone as it yearns to be in that blue, blue sky with him.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The infinity-eth (stop counting, stop counting, stop counting down) time, there are no warm colours. Sharp blues and eerie reds splashed on black walls. The red lights pulsate in a cheap imitation of her heart as it slam, slam, slams itself - he’sherehe’sherehe’sherehecame. Of course he came. Of course he came - because - because her heart cannot be this far from his again without dying a little faster. And maybe - just maybe his own three-sizes too big heart thunders around in his barrel of a chest when he stands next to her too.
Maybe - maybe he’s even been keeping count.
The Raptor is a dull, nondescript colour, and his flight suit is green - but his eyes (oh his eyes) are still so, so blue - bluer than she’s ever seen before - bluest when they look at her as if she is the only thing in the world - in the universe that exists. And when he holds her, and she feels her heart leap and bound forward, forward, forward until it beats against his, with his, she closes her eyes and breathes for the first time in forever, and her heart doesn’t feel any ache, any pain, anything other than the complete sense of being home.
When her face is buried in his neck, she can see nothing but golds and blues and love and him.
He hasn’t been counting the amount of times his heart ached for her either, as it turns out - but he knows that it was far too many times too count.
(About time).